Defending Education: Top Cyber Security Challenges in Higher Education

Best Practices and Recommendations for Higher Education Institutions

To effectively combat cyber threats, higher education institutions must adopt a proactive and tailored cyber security strategy. This begins with conducting a comprehensive risk assessment to measure their overall cyber security posture, but also to understand what makes their institution an attractive target specifically.

Universities and colleges should consider the assets they hold—whether it’s sensitive student data, valuable research project data, or intellectual property. Furthermore, institutions need to evaluate their relationships with external collaborators, including research partners, government agencies, and private corporations, as these partnerships may expose them to additional risks.

Geographic location can also influence the threat landscape, particularly if the institution is involved in research or collaborations that are of interest to state-sponsored actors. People of interest who teach among faculties or attend universities can attract both influence and risk. The NCSC has published guidance for HE institutions supporting VIPs and high-risk individuals.

With the right guidance and expertise, information security teams, compliance teams and other internal stake holders can identify where their biggest risks are within their estate, the most likely threat actors to target them, and thus the most likely methods and techniques they are to deploy, ultimately providing a “blueprint” for an optimal cyber security strategy and posture hardening.

With this understanding in place, universities can then implement best practices such as:

Adopting a Zero Trust Architecture

This approach assumes no user or device is trusted by default, even if they are already inside the network. This approach is especially crucial for higher education institutions, given their vast, open networks, with users accessing resources from diverse locations and devices.

Example in Higher Education: Universities can implement micro-segmentation within their networks to limit the movement of attackers if a breach occurs. For example, restricting student access to sensitive research databases or administrative systems through segmented network zones can prevent unauthorised access, even if an attacker has already breached one area.

Another common practice is continuous authentication, where the system regularly checks user credentials and behaviour, such as location, device type, or network usage, to identify any anomalies that could indicate a breach.

The University of California, Berkeley has adopted a Zero Trust approach by implementing secure, role-based access controls for its academic resources, minimising access privileges for non-administrative users. Their system continuously verifies user identity, reducing the risk of lateral movement by attackers. [source: The University of California, Berkeley]

Strengthening Access Controls

Implementing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) ensures only authorised individuals have access to critical systems and data.

MFA requires users to present two or more forms of verification (something they know, something they have, and something they are). This is particularly effective in defending against phishing attacks, which are highly prevalent in higher education.

Example in Higher Education: Implementing MFA across university systems for both students and staff can prevent unauthorised access even if login credentials are stolen. For example, universities can require students to verify their identity using a mobile app or a hardware token in addition to their password.

The University of Oxford rolled out a university-wide MFA system, requiring all staff and students to authenticate using both their university credentials and an additional form of verification, such as a mobile phone app or security token. This has drastically reduced successful phishing attacks by ensuring that stolen passwords alone are not enough to gain access. [source: The University of Oxford]

Regular Software Updates and Endpoint Protection

Ensuring that all devices, including personal ones used for work (BYOD), have up-to-date antivirus and firewall protection is crucial. Regular software updates are vital to patch known vulnerabilities. Additionally, enabling remote wipe capabilities for lost or compromised devices ensures sensitive data can be erased quickly.

Phishing and Social Engineering Awareness Training

Employees are often the first line of defence against cyber threats. Regular training sessions on phishing, social engineering, and secure data handling can significantly reduce the risk of human error leading to a security breach.

Collaborating with External Cyber Experts

Partnering with cyber security experts, especially in the field of penetration testing, Managed Security Service Providers and Incident Response, or government agencies can provide higher education institutions with real-time threat intelligence, access to advanced security technologies, insights into vulnerabilities and misconfigurations across their estate and provide assurance that their assets and users will be safeguarded in the event of a cyber attack or data breach.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

Endpoint detection alone is no longer sufficient given today’s digital threat landscape. Organisations must now employ an “always-on” threat detection and monitoring capability. However, employing and retaining qualified cyber security analysts and engineers can be very expensive. Running a 24/7 SOC (Security Operations Centre) in-house with experienced analysts and security experts with state-of-the-art defensive technologies are typically reserved for multi-national conglomerates and global tier 1 banks.

MDR services provide continuous monitoring and analysis of an organisation’s entire estate, including endpoints, network traffic and activity logs. By outsourcing to experts, firms can ensure that threats are detected and mitigated in real-time, reducing the risk of a successful attack.

Incident Response and Recovery

Having a robust incident response plan is essential for mitigating the damage caused by cyber incidents. Higher education institutions should invest in both in-house and outsourced incident response teams to ensure a swift and effective reaction to breaches and conduct regular assessments of their cyber incident response plans (CIRP) or ‘tabletop exercises’ simulating various cyber incident scenarios to ensure that their response strategies are robust and understood by all risk owners.

Vulnerability Management

Regularly updating and patching software, coupled with continuous vulnerability assessments, is vital for maintaining a secure infrastructure. Cyber security as a Service (CSaaS) solutions, such as CyberLab Control, can help organisations manage vulnerabilities effectively without overburdening internal teams.